Personalized account migration system and method

ABSTRACT

A method for migrating information, and a migrator for migrating information, are disclosed. The method may include extracting organizational information from at least two service providers, accessing a first at least one of the at least two service providers upon selection of a migration selection interface by the user, receiving of a first plurality of information related to the user from one of the service providers, accessing a second at least one of the at least two service providers, and writing the first plurality of information to the second at least one of the at least two service providers. The migrator includes an importer in communicative connection with at least one migrate-from service provider, a normalizer that receives a first plurality of information from the importer and converts the first plurality to a standard format, a denormalizer that receives the standard format from the normalizer and converts the standard format to a second plurality of information, and an exporter communicatively connected to a migrate-to service provider, which exporter receives the second plurality of information from the denormalizer and sends the second plurality to the migrate-to service provider.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/798,876, filed Apr. 12, 2010 (the '876 application). The'876 application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/980,048, filed Oct. 30, 2007 (the '048 application), which issued asU.S. Pat. No. 7,836,197. The '048 application is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/723,324, filed Nov. 27, 2000, whichissued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,325,067. The preceding patent applications areherein incorporated by reference in their entirety.

STATEMENT REGARDING SPONSORED DEVELOPMENT

Not Applicable.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is directed generally to transferring personalizedaccounts from a first service provider to a second service provider, andmore particularly to the automated transfer of personalized datainformation, associated with a first service provider, to a secondservice provider, such that a user may switch from receiving servicesfrom the first service provider to receiving services from the secondservice provider without being required to manually re-enter thepersonalizing information with the second service provider.

2. Description of the Background

The use of the Internet as an information tool is commonplace throughoutsociety. The Internet creates accessibility to a large body ofinformation for parties having access to the Internet. Difficulty hasarisen in that very numerous formats are in use on the internet to allowfor a presentation of this large body of information, and, consequently,it is cumbersome to present information, such as personalized datainformation, to internet users and internet service providers in acommon, efficient manner.

To this end, portal web-sites have been developed to provide Internetusers with a predetermined set of links and information displays. Theselinks and displays are were historically common to all users of theportal site, resulting in the provision of information which was oflittle interest to some users, while not displaying information or linksof importance to other users.

In order to improve the efficiency of these portal sites, personalizedfeatures were implemented on these sites via the implementation ofindividualized user profiles. The user profiles define specificinterests of the individual user, such as a specific stock that a userdesires to track, or the specific profile of a user, such as on email orcalendars. The use of active web pages, generated by the informationservice provider upon an individual's request, allows these pages to betailored to a multitude of users, without requiring the storage ofstatic information display information.

The ability to personalize pages has not been limited to portal sites,but has also been applied to news, financial, investment and shoppingsites as well, for example, particular web-sites may create a customertopic preference list, which is used to present books which are mostlikely to be of interest to an individual shopper based on the shopper'sprevious purchases.

The parameters which define an individual's personalizing informationare limited by the options implemented by the web-site offering thepersonalized display. For portal sites, typical parameters includestocks to track, sports teams to follow, a city or location for weatherreports, favorite TV channels for programming information, orpresentation formats for elements within a display, or, for example,email formatting and handling options, calendar and schedulingpreferences, and display preferences, or information generated by a userduring use of the portal, such as email, appointments, or telephonecalling histories. For example, a book sales web-site might includenotations for preferences such as types of fiction read by anindividual, musical tastes for record or CD sales, and address andpayment information for purchases made by the individual.

The ability to generate personalized web presentations has been based onseveral technologies for associating personalizing information with anindividual user. These technologies include generating scripted webaddresses based on an individual's provision of a user access code, suchas a user name and a password. The host on which the web site isoperating is able to identify the computer originating the request, andgraft personalized data information parameters to a base address,forming a scripted address, to which the individual is redirected. Thehost computer interprets the scripted address as a request for displayof the base web page modified pursuant to the grafted parameters. Inorder for the host computer to be able to understand the graftedmaterial, the material must be appended according to a specificprotocol, such that the host can determine what is intended by comparingvalues at locations with the protocol definitions of those locations.The grafted information may then be used for generating the displayassociated with the base address.

Storage of the personalized data information for an individual can beaccomplished either on the individual's computer, or within a databasestored on the web-site's host computer. One tool frequently in use isthe storage of a “cookie” on an individual's computer. The cookiecontains information, such as when the computer being used by theindividual was last used to access the web-site associated with thecookie. Cookies can also be used to hold identifiers associated with theuser, or for holding personalizing information for the generation ofpersonalized web displays. Alternatively, where more robust or sensitiveinformation is required, personalized information regarding theindividual user and his or her preferences can be stored within adatabase on the web-site host, where the individual directs the web-sitehost to recall this information by providing an access instruction, suchas submission of a user ID and a password.

Each web-site generally develops its own protocol for storing andimplementing personalized data information associated with anindividual, due to the fact that each web site may present differentoptions for its users than other web sites. The options become morediverse when preferences are used for specific portal types, such asfinancial account access portals, club membership portals, or web-storeportals. As the internet has evolved, users have been provided with theopportunity to obtain information, to communicate, and to access theseservices that enable users to manage their personal information anddata.

The business success of these portals is dependant on the ability of thesite to generate a high hit rate, or number of accesses, by individualusers. The more hits, the more an advertiser will pay to have theiradvertisements shown on the web-site. The primary source for newmembership for the portals historically has been first time andbeginning Internet users. However, as the Internet has been movingtoward saturation, the number of new users dwindles. Thus, as theavailability of new Internet users decreases, the ability of aweb-service to grow will be dependent on the ability of the web-site toattract customers away from other web-services. Consequently,competition for users in every portal type and category will necessarilyincrease as “new” users decrease. Once saturation occurs and the newusers are exhausted, new and established providers in every categorywill need to capture established providers' users. However, capturingestablished users is difficult, because users are less likely to switchservice providers due to the extensive setup process with each serviceprovider, and the consequential need to re-enter the same informationtwice or more.

Therefore, the need exists for a migration method and system formigrating between service providers that uses known methods of dataentry and storage for personalized web sites, but that additionallyallows for migration by a user to a new service without re-entry by theuser of all previously required information for the old serviceprovider.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to a method for migrating information.The method may include extracting organizational information from atleast two service providers to form at least two organizationalinformation protocols, wherein one organizational information protocolcorresponds to each of the at least two service providers, providing amigration selection interface to a user, accessing a first at least oneof the at least two service providers upon selection of the migrationselection interface by the user, receiving, according to theorganizational information protocol correspondent to the first at leastone of the at least two service providers, of a first plurality ofinformation related to the user, upon accessing the first at least oneof the at least two service providers, accessing a second at least oneof the at least two service providers upon selection of the migrationselection interface by the user, and writing the first plurality ofinformation to the second at least one of the at least two serviceproviders according to the organizational information protocolcorrespondent to the second at least one of the at least two serviceproviders.

The present invention is also directed to a migrator for migratingpersonalized services. The migrator includes an importer incommunicative connection with at least one migrate-from serviceprovider, which at least one migrate-from service provider has beenselected by a user, a normalizer that receives a first plurality ofinformation from the importer and converts the first plurality to astandard format, a denormalizer that receives the standard format fromthe normalizer and converts the standard format to a second plurality ofinformation, and an exporter communicatively connected to a migrate-toservice provider, which exporter receives the second plurality ofinformation from the denormalizer and sends the second plurality to themigrate-to service provider. The migrator may additionally include anextractor that extract organizational information protocol from at leasttwo service providers, in order to allow data migration between the atleast two service providers.

The present invention solves problems experienced in the prior artbecause it provides a migration method and system for migrating betweenservice providers that uses known methods of data entry and storage forpersonalized web sites, and that additionally allows for migration by auser to a new service without re-entry by the user of all previouslyrequired information for the old service provider.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

For the present invention to be clearly understood and readilypracticed, the present invention will be described in conjunction withthe following figures, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for migratinginformation;

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating normalization performed by animport coordinating service;

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating denormalization performed by anexport coordinating service; and

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating the hardware and software of amethod for migrating services.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

It is to be understood that the figures and descriptions of the presentinvention have been simplified to illustrate elements that are relevantfor a clear understanding of the present invention, while eliminating,for purposes of clarity, many other elements found in a typical networkcommunication system. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognizethat other elements are desirable and/or required in order to implementthe present invention. However, because such elements are well known inthe art, and because they do not facilitate a better understanding ofthe present invention, a discussion of such elements is not providedherein. Additionally, the following definitions are provided to aid inunderstanding the usage of terms employed in this specification:

Personalized Data Information—the terms “personalized data information”,“personal information”, and “preferences” are used to refer to anyinformation used to provide personalized services to an entity, such asan individual or business, including any data entered to a service by anentity during use of the service by that entity. Illustrativepersonalizing information includes, but is not limited to, a geographiclocation for preferred weather reports, a specific sports team forpreferred sports news, taxpayer information for investment activities,email display and handling preferences, emails sent and received,calendar display and handling, appointments made, contact phone numbersand addresses, banking and loan information and handling, in generalpersonalized preferences, in general formatting preferences, and accessand security codes.

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 10 for migratinginformation. The method may include the steps of extractingorganizational information from at least two service providers to format least two organizational information protocols 12, accessing a firstat least one of the at least two service providers 14 upon selection ofa migration selection interface by the user 16, receiving 18, accordingto the informational protocol correspondent to the first at least one ofthe at least two service providers, of a first plurality of informationrelated to the user, accessing 20 a second at least one of the at leasttwo service providers upon selection of the migration selectioninterface by the user, and the writing 22 of the first plurality ofinformation to the second at least one of the at least two serviceproviders according to the organizational information protocol. Thesesteps are performed by or through a migration provider.

The step 12 of extracting organizational information from at least twoservice providers forms at least two organizational informationprotocols. One organizational information protocol is correspondent toeach of the at least two service providers from which the extractionoccurs. The at least two service providers preferably provide servicesin any service provision area. For example, service provision areas mayinclude banking and financial services, email services, on line calendarand address book services, “mysite.com” pages, bill payment services,and application service providers, etc.

Banking and financial services may include, for example, services suchas the payment of an application for mortgages, loans, balancetransfers, and additional transactions involving institutionalinvolvement, including the filling out of forms, credit checks, etc.,and may additionally include formatting and digital signal encryption,login and password information. Banking and financial service sites maynecessarily include, for example, organizational information such as thelocation of account numbers and balances.

Mysite.com” sites provide services such as personalized web pages. Forexample, a “mysite.com” site may include an ISP site, a wirelesscustomization site, or a shopping site. A “mysite.com” site mightinclude personalized services such as weather, bookmarks, stock quotes,emails and email preferences, or calendars, including all informationtherein and the setup thereof, for a particular user. A “mysite.com”site may also include online trading sites, such as stock trading,barter, or auction sites. Online trading sites typically requirenumerous forms to be filled out by a user, and each form, including theset up of each form, would be included in the personal data informationreceived by the migration provider, as discussed hereinbelow.

The organizational information protocol extracted during the extractingstep 12 would include the organizational setup of all information typesdiscussed hereinabove, and all others apparent to those skilled in theart, such as its format and location. Thus, the organizationalinformation protocol of a “mysite.com” site may additionally includeformatting and digital signal encryption types, and login and passwordformatting and location information, for the personalized site, forexample.

A wireless customization site preferably would include personal data onthe wireless telephone user, and may include billing information.Further, a wireless customization site might include calling patternsand plans of the user, and types of telephone used by the user. Wirelesscustomization sites may additionally include, for example, weather,news, and stock quotes, which may then be available using a web-enabledtelephone.

Bill payment information may include addresses and amount for each orseveral creditors, and may include usage patterns for, for example,utility providers. The setup and formatting of both the billing to theuser, and of the payment from the user to the creditor, which mightinclude, for example, electronic transfer formatting and location, wouldform part of the organizational information protocol.

Application service providers include those businesses that allowoutsourcing online. For example, an application service provider canautomate the payroll for a company on the internet. The organizationalinformation protocol in this example would thus include the location andformatting of the various pieces of payroll information, such as a chartencompassing the order of certain columns pertaining to “employee”,“salary”, “job title”, etc.

The organizational information protocol extracted from the at least twoservice providers at step 12 is a master setup, extracted in order toprovide a framework into which personal information can be sent andreceived. Upon extraction at step 12, the organizational information maybe placed, for example, into an organizational information protocoldatabase organized by service provider as part of step 12. Theorganizational information may be imported by an importer during theextraction step 12, and the information imported reflects the manner oforganization, information entry methods, and information extractionmethods, of a service provider site. For example, the organizationalinformation protocol would include the keys, such as html keys, thatprecede particular pieces of information on a service provider site(i.e. the key “name” precedes the user's name). This keyed informationreflects the manner of organization of the information on the serviceprovider Further, organizational information protocol would include thenumerical format, or ranges, in which items must be placed for a givenservice provider.

Further, as discussed hereinabove, the organizational information mightinclude the manner of entry of information to the site. For example, ascript can be generated by the method of migrating during the extractionstep, which script can be used later for a normalization step, and whichscript reflects the entry keys that precede or occur with the entry ofinformation. For example, a cookie or other type of identifyinginformation may be used during entry of information by a user, and thisinformation would be extracted as part of the organizational informationprotocol for each service provider.

Additionally, information extraction methods may be received by themigration provider during the extraction step 12. For example, on acertain service provider, user information may be placed behind apassword, and, upon entry of that password, a user may be able to usethe keys mentioned hereinabove to locate and extract certain informationabout the user and the site. That methodology necessary for extractinginformation is part of the organizational information protocol for eachservice provider.

The organizational information provides a normalization engine for theinformation gained in later transactions. Once the organizationalinformation protocol has been extracted, it can be used to extract anypersonal data information from a site for which the organizationalinformation protocol is known, and that personal information can benormalized, shown as step 26, as discussed hereinbelow. The extractionat step 12 therefore extracts the keys that will be later used to removekey and value pair information containing the personal data informationof the requesting user.

The creation of the organizational information protocol database duringthe extraction step 12 may be performed by numerous different methods.For example, an account or accounts may be created with the serviceprovider by the extracting party, and information may thereby be gainedthrough a tracking and accounting of the account created. Alternatively,a site may be entered onto by the extracting party, and the site may bescraped for the required information. Alternatively, a spider may becreated that enters service provider websites and removes theorganizational information therefrom. Additionally, each serviceprovider may provide the organizational information protocol to theextracting party.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the extraction atstep 12 of the setup and structure information of a service providersite, i.e. the organizational information protocol, from each provider,may be performed, in the first part, by entering the website acting as abrowser. For example, a log-in may be generated to enter the first page,cookies returned from the service provider may then be captured, anddata required for site entry may then be input, either manually orautomatically. Html parsing may then be performed within step 12 torecognize what is displayed on the screen upon entering the site. Thescreen, and/or the code that makes up the screen, may additionally bescraped to gain organizational information protocol. In certainembodiments of the present invention, security checks of the mysite.comor others service providers may have to be satisfied before theinformation can be scraped. Once security has been satisfied, theprotocol set forth hereinabove is followed and the scrapedorganizational information protocol may be preferably mapped to astandard format, such as xml, as part of step 12, for normalization intothe same format as the subsequently extracted personalized datainformation. This normalized format database of organizationalinformation protocols, which is preferably an xml format, provides auniversal database of organizational information protocols for allservice providers available. Further, this universal database mayinclude the manner in which information accessed according to theorganizational information protocol must be normalized.

The user is provided with a migration selection interface in order toperform step 16. This migration selection interface may take any formknown in the art, such as, for example, clickable icon, button, or tile,the checking of an authorization box, the entry of a name, the entry ofa password, the entry of personal information, or the entry of creditcard information. Upon selection of the migration selection interface bythe user 16, one of the service providers, as selected by the user asthe “migration-from” service provider, is accessed, at step 14, if that“migration-from” service provider is available as an extracted-from sitein step 12. In a preferred embodiment, this accessing 14 of themigrating-from service provider is performed in a manner such as wouldbe performed by the user himself. For example, upon selection of themigration selection interface, the user may be asked, at step 16, toenter any personal information required to enter the migrating-fromservice provider site, such as a user name and password, which will belater used by the migration provider to access the migrate-from site.

The step 18 of receiving the first plurality of personal informationrelated to the user who has activated the migration selection interfaceis performed according to the organizational information protocol thatcorresponds to the migrate-from service provider, as extracted at step12. The step 18 of receiving the first plurality of information isperformed upon the accessing 14 of the selected migrate-from serviceprovider. The step 14 of receiving the first plurality of informationmay include, or be separate from, the normalization 26 of the firstplurality of information into the same normalized format as theorganizational information protocol database, such as xml for example.This normalization 26 is performed by receiving personal informationdata according to the organizational information protocol for themigrate-from service provider, and placing the received personalinformation data into a normalized, i.e. universal, format. Thus, thenormalization technique will be related to the specific migrate-fromprovider selected at step 16, and will be performed according to thespecific organizational information protocol of the migrate-from serviceprovider, as stored in the organizational information database at step12.

The normalization 26 of the present invention, in an embodimentincluding normalization 26, is preferably performed by an importcoordinating service, as illustrated in FIG. 2. The import coordinatingservice 104 sends out control messages 102, which control messages 102request to receive the personal information according to the formatstored in the organizational information protocol database. Thus, thecontrol messages 102 are created using the organizational informationprotocol correspondent to the migrate-from service provider by thebusiness logic 104, and are specifically created to obtain necessarypersonal data information from the migrate-from provider according tothe organizational information protocol of that migrate-from serviceprovider.

Different portions or services of the migrate-from service provider maynecessitate different control messages 102, and these control messages102 may be sent individually, or in a bundle 102 a that is divided uponreaching the migrate-from provider 108. Where the control messages 102 aare bundled, the main bundled message may be an import coordinatingcontrol message 102 a that tracks the progress of the individual controlmessages 102 in the bundle 102 a, as shown in FIG. 2, and the individualmessages 102 in the bundle 102 a may then be used to gain individualpieces of personal data information and report back to the importcoordinating control message 102 a, which import coordinating controlmessage 102 a reports back to the import coordinating service 104. Forexample, a particular migrate-from service provider may have a mailservice 110 that requires three control messages 102 to receive thenumber and content of messages present 110 a, the format in which themessages are displayed 110 b, and the unique sending and receivingoptions of the selecting user 110 c, respectively. Thus, the requiredthree messages 102 might be bundled 102 a and sent in one importcoordinating control message 102 a to the mail portion 110 of themigrate-from provider, or may be organized in a master import controlmessage 102 a and slave import control message 102 format bundle.

Information, in the form of return control messages 202, is returnedfrom the individual services 110 a, 110 b, 110 c or service portionsthat received the control messages 102 a, 102 b, 102 c respectively, andthese return control messages 202 are passed through the importcoordinating service 104, as illustrated in FIG. 3. The return controlmessages 202 preferably include the results from the informationrequested by the control messages, i.e. the personal information data,as well as any errors that occurred in the information requested. Forexample, if information requested by a control message 202 could not belocated, or was not formatted according to the organizationalinformation protocol correspondent to the migrate-from service provider,that error would be returned in a return control message 202. The errorsmay be forwarded to the requesting user, such as by appearing on theuser's computer, or by being emailed to the user, thereby giving theuser the option to enter or correct any missing or incorrectinformation.

Returning now to FIG. 1, a migrate-to service provider is accessed, atstep 20, upon selection 16 of a migration-selection interface by theuser, and preferably is accessed 20 upon receipt of the first pluralityof information from the migrate-from accessed service provider, at step18. The personal information data, which, in the preferred embodiment,has been normalized 26 by the import coordinator 104, is written 22 tothe migrate-to service provider when the migrate-to service provider isaccessed 20. The step 22 of writing the personal information data to themigrate-to service provider may include the step of denormalizing thepersonal data information into the organizational information protocolcorrespondent to the migrate-to service provider. This denormalizationmay include the reformatting of the personal data information from theuniversal format, such as xml, into the format used by the migrate-toservice provider, thereby forming a second plurality of information.This denormalization may be performed by an export coordinating service.

The export coordinating service performs the inverse function of theimport coordinating service 104, and thus would be shown as FIG. 3,followed by FIG. 2, in order of operation. The export coordinatingservice preferably removes the normalized personal data information fromthe normalized database, and either writes the personal data informationdirectly to the migrate-to service provider in the normalized format ora denormalized format, or sends the personal data information via aseries of export control messages. These export control messages may besent individually or in an export bundle controlled by an exportcoordinating control message, and each message preferably goes to oneportion or one service provided by the migrate-to service provider. Themessage then remaps the personal data information into the properlocation on the migrate-to service provider, according to the properlocation for the migrate-to service provider as stored in theorganizational information protocol database.

The migration provider may use two financial models in conjunction withthe present invention. In the first financial model, a casual browserenters the site of the migration provider, and selects the migrationselection interface thereon. The casual browser may then be charged afee for migration, such as to a credit card, or may be migrated for nocharge. In this first models service providers may pay a fee to themigration provider to allow new users to use the service. In a secondfinancial model, the service provider may pay a fee in order to providea link to the migration provider on the service provider's site, therebyallowing the migration provider to offer the service for free to thebrowser. In this second financial model, service providers preferablypay a fee, such as a promotional fee, directly to the migrationprovider. In this second model, a service provider may be charged peruser migrated-to that service provider, or may pay a flat fee for theuse of the migration service. Additionally, the migration method may besold to the service provider, thus making the migrate-to serviceprovider the migration provider as well. Alternatively, the selection ofa migration selection interface, such as a link, on the service providersite may cause the user to be linked to the separate migration providerby a hidden link, thereby appearing to the user to be both the serviceprovider and the migration provider, while, in reality, the two entitiesremain separate. Thus, as service provision markets become saturated,the present invention opens a new market wherein customers can movereadily to new service providers, thereby allowing service providers togain new customers even in a saturated market.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating the hardware and software 300 ofa method for migrating services in operation. This illustration shows amigrator 406 for use with the method of migration. In the exemplaryembodiment discussed with respect to FIG. 4, the hardware and software300 is discussed with respect to wireless telephone service providers,although those skilled in the art will understand that the hardware,software, and methods discussed in FIG. 4 are applicable to any serviceprovision type, as discussed hereinabove and hereinbelow, such as, butnot limited to, internet portals, emails, personal web pages, emailpreferences, calendars and appointments, on-line trading, such as stocksand auctions, financial services, and bill paying.

FIG. 4 illustrates a migrate-from wireless web site 402, as a migratefrom service provider 402. The migrator 406 includes an importer 408, anormalizer 410, a normalized database 410 a, such as an xml database, adenormalizer, and an exporter 414 to the migrate-to service provider420. The migrator 406 may additionally include an extractor that scrapesorganizational information protocol from at least two service providers,as discussed hereinabove with respect to FIGS. 1, 2, and 3, as part ofimporter 408.

The importer 408 is in communicative connection with at least onemigrate-from service provider 402, which at least one migrate-fromservice provider 402 has been selected by a user. The importer 408 usescontrol messages 102, as discussed with respect to FIG. 2, to receivepersonal data information from the migrate-from service provider 402.After entry to the migrate-from service provider 402 based on, forexample, a username and password provided at the migration selectioninterface by the user, the importer 408 may receive, for example,wireless calling plan, telephone type, calling history, and web-phonesetup, such as email, stock quotes, or other preferences, and theinformation within the email, calendar, etc. Certain items ofinformation, such as salary, for example, may be received as ranges fromthe migrate-from service provider 402. The importer 408 used for eachservice provider is unique to that service provider, and importsaccording to the organizational information protocol of the migrate-fromservice provider. In a preferred embodiment, the importer 408 issoftware resident on, for example, a networked server or client PC.

The normalizer 410 receives the first plurality of information from theimporter 408, and normalizes the information to a standard format, suchas xml, as defined by the DTD. The normalizer 410 preferably generates astandard format, such as the xml 410 a, via an xml generator 410 a. Forexample, the user's calling plan, salary range, address, stock quotes,and email are preferably received from the migrate-from wirelessprovider site 402, and are converted to a standard format. This mayinclude the standardization of certain information received. Forexample, if the salary range on the migrate-from site 402 is $55,000 to$75,000, this may be normalized into $75,000, as well as normalized intoxml language. In a preferred embodiment, the normalizer 410 is softwareresident on, for example, a networked server or client PC.Alternatively, normalization may be performed by a normalizationprocessor 410.

The denormalizer 412 takes the normalized information from thestandardized, such as xml, database 410 a, and converts it to the properformat for the migrate-to service provider 420. This proper format forthe migrate-to provider 420 is then a second plurality of information.For example, the $75,000 in the above example may need to be convertedto a second range for the migrate-to service provider 420, such as$60,000-$80,000. This conversion is performed in the denormalizer 412.The denormalizer 412 parses the normalized information according to theDTD used to normalize the information, and thereby denormalizes theinformation. In a preferred embodiment, the denormalizer 412 is softwareresident on, for example, a networked server or client PC.Alternatively, denormalization may be performed by a denormalizationprocessor 412.

The exporter 414 uses control messages, as discussed with respect toFIGS. 2 and 3, to write personal data information to the migrate-toservice provider 420. After entry to the migrate-to service provider420, a username and password provided at the migration selectioninterface by the user are preferably entered to open the new useraccount, if required by the migrate-to service provider 420. Theexporter 414 may write, for example, wireless calling plan, telephonetype, calling history, and web-phone setup, such as email, stock quotes,or other preferences, to the migrate-to service provider 420, and mayadditionally select certain information at the migrate-to site 420 basedon the information from the migrate-from site 402. For example, on themigrate-from wireless site, a first calling plan may be used. At themigrate-to site, the first calling plan may not be available, but, basedon the normalized calling history from the migrate-from site, theexporter may be able to select the best calling plan at the migrate-tosite for the user. The exporter 414 used for each service provider isunique to that service provider, and exports according to theorganizational information protocol of the migrate-to service provider420. In a preferred embodiment, the exporter 414 is software residenton, for example, a networked server or client PC. In an embodimentwherein xml, or any other normalized format, can be delivered directlyto the migrate-to site 420, the exporter 414 may export the personaldata information without use of the denormalizer 412.

The extractor 430 extracts an organizational information protocol fromat least two service providers. The extractor 430 may be screen or codescraping software, data or language parsing software, or spideringsoftware. Upon extraction of an organizational information protocol fromthe migrate-from provider 402, the first plurality of information isnormalized by the normalizer 410 in accordance with the organizationalinformation protocol 432 correspondent to the migrate-from serviceprovider 402. Upon extraction of an organizational information protocol432 from the migrate-to provider 402, the second plurality ofinformation is created by denormalization by the denormalizer 412 inaccordance with the organizational information protocol 434correspondent to the migrate-to service provider 420.

It is well-known that computer readable storage media include bothtransitory and non-transitory types of media, with the distinctiontherebetween well within the realm of one of ordinary skill to ascertainas to its normal and ordinary meaning.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that manymodifications and variations of the present invention may beimplemented. The foregoing description and the following claims areintended to cover all such modifications and variations.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of migrating personalized servicesbetween service providers, the method comprising: receiving from a usera request to migrate personalized services from a first service providerto a second service provider; and operating one or more processors to:retrieve personalized information of the user from the first serviceprovider according to a first organizational information protocol of thefirst service provider; normalize the retrieved personalized informationinto a standard format; convert the normalized personalized informationto conform to a second organizational information protocol of the secondservice provider; and export the converted personalized information tothe second service provider.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising operating the one or more processors to: extractorganizational information protocols of one or more of the first serviceprovider and the second service provider.
 3. The method of claim 1,further comprising operating the one or more processors to: update adatabase of organizational information protocols to include the firstorganizational information protocol and the second organizationalinformation protocol.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein retrievingpersonalized information of the user from the first service providercomprises applying first security credentials of the user to access thefirst service provider.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein exporting theconverted personalized information to the second service providercomprises applying second security credentials of the user to access thesecond service provider.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving therequest to migrate personalized services comprises: providing amigration selection interface to the user for selection of the firstservice provider and the second service provider.
 7. The method of claim6, further comprising, prior to providing the migration selectioninterface: operating the one or more processors to form one or more ofthe first organizational information protocol and the secondorganizational information protocol.
 8. The method of claim 1, whereinat least one of the first service provider and the second serviceprovider provide wireless communication services.
 9. The method of claim1, wherein the personalized information comprises at least one of awireless calling plan, telephone type, calling history, web-phone setup,and web-phone preferences.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein thepersonalized services include at least one of: financial services,electronic mail services, social networking services, bill paymentservices, and online shopping services.
 11. A computer program productfor migrating personalized services between service providers, thecomputer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computerreadable storage medium and comprising instructions for: receiving froma user a request to migrate personalized services from a first serviceprovider to a second service provider; and operating one or moreprocessors to: retrieve personalized information of the user from thefirst service provider according to a first organizational informationprotocol of the first service provider; normalize the retrievedpersonalized information into a standard format; convert the normalizedpersonalized information to conform to a second organizationalinformation protocol of the second service provider; and export theconverted personalized information to the second service provider.
 12. Asystem for migrating personalized services between service providers,comprising: one or more processors; a memory coupled to the one or moreprocessors; and computer program code for storage in the memory andexecution by the one or more processors, the computer program codeincluding: migration code for retrieving personalized information of auser of a first service provider according to a first organizationalinformation protocol of the first service provider; normalization codefor normalizing the retrieved personalized information into a standardformat; de-normalization code for converting the normalized personalizedinformation to conform to a second organizational information protocolof a second service provider; and export code for exporting theconverted personalized information to the second service provider. 13.The system of claim 12, wherein the computer program code furtherincludes: extraction code for extracting organizational informationprotocols of one or more of the first service provider and the secondservice provider.
 14. The system of claim 12, further comprising: adatabase of organizational information protocols of multiple serviceproviders.
 15. The system of claim 12, wherein the migration codeapplies first security credentials of the user to access the firstservice provider.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein the export codeapplies second security credentials of the user to access the secondservice provider.
 17. The system of claim 12, wherein the computerprogram code further includes: interface code for providing a migrationselection interface to the user for selection of the first serviceprovider and the second service provider.
 18. The system of claim 17,wherein the computer program code further includes: protocol formationcode for forming one or more of the first organizational informationprotocol and the second organizational information protocol; wherein theprotocol formation code is executed by the one or more processors priorto execution of the interface code.
 19. The system of claim 12, whereinthe personalized information comprises at least one of a wirelesscalling plan, telephone type, calling history, web-phone setup, andweb-phone preferences.
 20. The system of claim 12, wherein thepersonalized services include at least one of: financial services,electronic mail services, social networking services, bill paymentservices, and online shopping services.